1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the graphical display of data and, more particularly, to systems that produce graphical data displays.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modern enterprises are increasingly collecting vast amounts of data and storing the data in computer databases for later use. The data can relate to a variety of subject matter, such as business intelligence, customer relations, supply chain information, or any other subject. Although such data can provide a valuable knowledge platform for an enterprise, the vast amounts of data make it difficult for an enterprise to present the accumulated data in a comprehensible manner to those who can use the data. This is because enterprises typically lack the practical tools that would allow the enterprise to visually present the data in a manner that could be easily navigated and sorted by a user. As a result, the data is often unused by the enterprise.
One way of presenting vast amounts of data in an easily-digestible manner is by presenting the data in a treemap format. As used herein, a treemap is a visual representation of a hierarchical data set. Treemaps differ from the traditional textual methods of displaying data, which use lists and tables to present data. Such traditional methods often require several pages of convoluted lists and tables in order to represent different aspects of a large data set. In contrast, a treemap can compactly display various aspects of a data set using a collection of graphical representations on a single page. A treemap is particularly useful for displaying a hierarchically-organized data set.
A treemap 110 typically includes a collection of two-dimensional cells of rectangular shape, each of which represents a data element of the data set. The cells are gathered in the treemap in separate groups. The cells that are within a common group all share a common type of attribute of the data set. The cells of a treemap typically have characteristics, such as size and color, that represent various attributes of the data. For example, the size of the cells can represent one attribute of the data and the color of the cells can represent another attribute of the data. Thus, a viewer of the treemap can gain insight into data attributes by examining the grouping, size, and color characteristics of the cells.
Thus, a treemap can be used to represent multiple aspects of large amounts of data in a compact and comprehensible manner. When the data is stored in an electronic format, a computer is typically used to generate a computer treemap display page, which is a page containing a treemap that is displayed on a computer screen, such as within the display window of a browser application.
One barrier to the wide use of treemap display pages is that getting the electronic data from a raw format (such as text data) into a treemap format is not an easy task. It usually requires a person with computer-programming knowledge and Web page markup language knowledge who can examine the data, format the data, and then write computer code in a markup language that can be properly processed and used to generate a treemap representation of the data on a computer display screen. This process can be time-consuming and expensive. Thus, although a treemap is an effective way of displaying data, enterprises tend to shy away from using computer-generated treemap display pages, as the time and effort of getting the raw data into a treemap display page can often outweigh the multitude of benefits associated with treemaps.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for facilitating the creation of computer-renderable display pages that include a treemap representation of a data set.